Cavewomen were the first explorers, says study. Origin of wanderlust explained.
Over two million years ago women roamed the earth, not men. New findings published in the journal, Nature, suggest that "pre-human" females had the travel bug, uprooting from their birth homes in order to hunt for mates.
The findings are based on several teeth that date back to our pre-historic ancestors. The differences in mineral variation between the male and female teeth have paleontologists believing that women were charged with leaving the nest, while the men stayed behind holding down the fort.
The evolutionary explanation is fairly unromantic: women were trying to avoid incestuous inbreeding by hunting for non-relatives to mate with. Eat, Pray, Love, it wasn't. But the idea that women left home in search of their future isn't so far from what we do today. Whether it's a vacation, a road trip, or a more permanent move, traveling is a romantic notion for women. At least, it is in movies.
Ever notice how many rom-coms involve traveling across country or abroad? The fantasy of falling in love while far from home is embedded in our modern folklore. "When in Rome", "Leap Year", "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Could the fairy-tale travel romance be linked to our ancestral past? It would be nice to have some explanation for why "Chasing Liberty" is so enjoyable.
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